Cold Hands
by Wednesday Ghost
Summary: When Sasuke and Naruto are isolated together in a training excersize, Sasuke learns that even bitter ninjas bent on revenge can fall in love, and Naruto learns that he can't trust his heart. Angst, yaoi, lemony later. [up: ch.4, the SasuNaru retreat!]
1. Default Chapter

Title:  Cold Hands

Series:  Naruto

Author:  Coyen

Pairing:  Sasuke x Naruto

Rating:  PG-13

Disclaimer:  I don't own Naruto, this writing is merely for entertainment purposes.  If I did own it, Sasuke would be Naruto's bitch, and Sakura would be dead already, and I would be happy.

Author's Notes:  This might be slightly AU, or OOC, I think.  Please forgive me, I have limited knowledge of the actual plotline and characters.  I just wanted to write this pairing for pleasure.  Please enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE review!  (---desperate)

Chapter One:  No Fucking Way, Sensei

Naruto swore under his breath and dug already bruised fingers deeply into the bark of the tree.   The flesh of the branch was soft and pliable, and his nails tore gashes into it that were long and sticky with freshly running sap.  It was night, and the moon that hovered over him and his bleeding tree was full and a pasty yellow, and covered with minuscule craters that were visible even far away on Earth.  Naruto wondered, as he nursed his sore fingers, sucking on them gingerly, if those craters would fill up with water if it ever rained on the moon.  Like big, steaming bowls of ramen… that was it.  He could never look at the moon again without his stomach rumbling.

The vulpine boy frowned and drew his legs up, wrapping his arms around bony knees, forgetting for a bit how sore his fingers were from training.  The only thoughts in his mind were centered around his next mission, and how much it was going to SUCK.

What had been Kakashi's deal, anyway, pairing him up with that jerk Sasuke?  What was up that ninja's ass?!  He knew how much the two hated each other- or at least, how much Naruto loathed his 'rival.'  Naruto growled low in his throat, gritty and deep.  He'd kick Kakashi's _ass!_

//flashback//

The blond-haired boy sat perched on a low-hanging tree branch, a little bit away from the rest of his classmates, who were clumped about in various clique-like groups, chatting eagerly away in the clearing.  Frowning and crossing his arms over his chest, he stuck his tongue out at the few who occasionally turned his way to glare.  Nyah.  Fuck them, who cared if he had no friends?  He'd sit by himself.

One thing that brought a tiny twinge of joy was the fact that Sasuke always sat alone.  Not that he didn't have anyone to sit with, like Naruto-  just about every girl in the class would make room for him.  He simply enjoyed being alone.  If he ever changed his mind, of course, Sakura would instantly have a seat open for him next to her.

That brought another grimace to his vulpine face.  Sakura, the girl that he'd had a crush on ever since he first saw her, was completely committed to winning over the stoic asshole.  Why?!!  He did nothing but ignore her advances!  He acted just about as uninterested as one could possibly act!!

Naruto snorted.  He hated Sasuke.

"Attention, young shinobi,"  Iruka interrupted his train of thought, addressing the gathered class.  "Today, your cell instructors and senior Jonin will be informing you of a new mission.  A retreat of sorts."

The class erupted with sounds of awe and excitement.  A retreat?  Like a vacation??

"Please go to them now."  Iruka concluded, snapping his roll book shut.  "They will give you further details."

Naruto hopped down off his tree, and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking around for Kakashi.  When he didn't immediately spot the Jonin, his gaze fell to Sasuke, who was walking away from the crowd.  Sakura ran after him, and caught up till they were walking together, and started talking animatedly, most likely about some new technique she'd mastered with her chakra.  

"Damn Sasuke…"  Naruto couldn't help but grumble as he followed them.  "Why's Sakura always walking beside him, anyways?  Couldn't she walk with me…"  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew how stupid and desperate he sounded.  Haruno would rather lick the ground than hold a decent conversation with him.  Slapping his usual grin and obnoxious attitude back on and into place, he bounded up beside the two.

"Sakura-chan!  I bet you're excited about our mission, you can go on a romantic retreat with ME!"  He pulled a face and jumped in front of her, posing.

"Dry up and die, Naruto!"  She growled, shouldering past him, her ugly expression instantly sweet again as she turned back to Sasuke.  "I hope our retreat is somewhere exotic,"  She murmured to Sasuke, who was all-out ignoring her.  "I'm tired of snow and these tiny, boring old villages!"

Naruto's face fell and he scowled, shoving his hands into his pockets again, walking along silently behind the two.  Fine, so Sakura would snub him no matter _how_ he addressed her.  On to his _second most_ favorite past-time, then!  Irritating Sasuke!  (Of course that's a tie with eating Ramen)

"Ne Sasuke!"  He bounded up beside the dark-haired boy.  "I heard you slipped while training yesterday!  Fell half way down the ledge before using your chakra to save your own ass!  Didja have a nice ride?"

Sasuke ignored him, too, not showing any sign of recognition but for the tiniest tensing of his shoulders.  This at least was _some_ sort of reaction!  And that was his only goal, to get a rise out of the level-headed, playing-it-cool Uchiha boy-  something that hardly ever happened!

"Didja fall on your butt?  Heh heh… slid down with a sore ass?"  He teased, spanking his own bottom for emphasis.  He stuck his tongue out, too, and grinned at the other boy.  

Sakura's face peered around Sasuke's profile as they all three kept walking.  "You leave him the hell alone, Naruto!  And who ever said you could walk with us, huh?  Why don't you-"  She was suddenly cut off and Sasuke stopped walking and spun on his heel to glare at her.

"Shut the fuck up, Haruno."  He whispered between clenched teeth.  "I don't need you to defend me."  Her eyes widened to a point of perfect circularity.  "And I don't recall inviting _you_ to join me in walking, either."

Naruto could only stare at this out-of-place display of emotion.  What had gotten into Sasuke?  He _never_ acted like this!  

But it was Naruto's turn next.  Sasuke spun back around to glare at Naruto.  "And don't ever mock me, Uzumaki."  The boy threatened.  "I'll just end up hurting you."

Naruto stared, and felt the rage building within him.  _Hurt _him?!  He would start a fight with Naruto?  NO WAY!  Naruto was the one that started the fights here!  And won them, too!  And since when did Sasuke react to his provoking?  Or even tell Sakura to piss off??  Something was definitely wrong here!!

"Fuck you, Sasuke!"  Naruto lurched forward, dashing towards the retreating back of the other boy.  Hell, he'd show everyone who kicked the asses around here!

But Sasuke had long predicted what the blond boy would do.  Using his sharingan, he moved out of the way of Naruto's charging form, then quickly whipped back around to grab the back of the boy's jacket.

"Ah-!"  Naruto yelped, falling forward from the weight of his classmate pushing on him behind.  He fell face forward, and landed on his stomach, Sasuke on top.  All the air rushed out of his lungs and his eyes were squeezed shut with pain.

Sasuke was still lying on top of him.  The dark-haired moved to roll off, but before he stood, whispered in Naruto's ear, his breath tickling down the back of an orange shirt; "See?  I'll just end up hurting you."

Sakura, who stood gaping like a fish, watched as Sasuke dusted himself off, then headed away from the two.  Naruto was still gasping for air where he lay sprawled out on the ground.  She looked back and forth between the two, then seemed to snap back into focus.  After sending a scathing, disgusted glare at Naruto, she turned and plastered the sweetest smile she could possibly have managed onto her face, and ran after the Uchiha boy, shouting at him how cool he was.

Naruto listened to her leave, then struggled upright, his fists clenched so hard that his nails drew blood.  How dare he… how dare Sasuke mess with the great Naruto like that!  And humiliate him in front of Sakura, too?!!

Naruto froze when something dawned upon him.  _Wait_… he thought silently, _wait one God damn minute!  What the hell did he do back there?  Why'd he have to fall down on me like that, he was right behind me, he could've just struck me in the back, between the shoulder blades or something!  He didn't have to fucking FALL on me!_  Naruto knitted his brow, nursing his wounded fingers where they had smashed into the earthen floor beneath his body, and concentrated.  _Why would he do that…_

----------

_Idiot!_  Sasuke swore, staring ahead down the path he walked, ignoring the incessant chatter of the girl walking beside him.  _Why did I have to go and… ah.  I could've just walked away… or smacked him on the head…_  He sighed in deep frustration.  _I lost control.  I can't let it happen again._  There was pause in his thoughts and Sakura's voice faded completely out as an image of Naruto rose unbidden to his mind, grinning that feline smile, two fingers seductively pressing against petal soft lips in a vulgar, insulting gesture.  _ I just couldn't help it.. it was unconscious… I had to, I felt his body beneath mine, and I wasn't sure what I felt…  And I took to long to get up off him…_

Sasuke's intense glare faltered, and was replaced by a softened one that was mixed with fear.  _What if… what if he suspects something?!  I've never lost control like that before… Something just made me choke, even though it only lasted a few seconds.  I felt his chest rise beneath me, felt him breathe.  I remember his back was warm from the sun beating down on it… and his hair was so bright, the way to light hit it, made it golden…_

Suddenly Sakura was touching his arm, and Sasuke was snapped instantly out of his reverie, a half-hidden guilty expression lingering on his stoic features, ghosting across his face.  "What do you think?  Sasuke."  Her smile was big and fake and happy and it made him sick.  Her hair was curling around her shoulders in the slight breeze, a bubble-gum pink.  The color made him sick.  Her cold, bony hands were on his arm.  He felt their chill through his sleeve, and it turned his stomach over, unlike when Naruto happened to accidentally touch him occasionally-  he always felt the heat from the other boys' slender hands warming his skin.  Why did he notice such little things?  Was that in the nature of a ninja?  To notice those tiny things, like how Naruto trembled slightly when he was content, or how Naruto's sandals had little hearts drawn on the sides from boredom in class?  Maybe he was just crazy.  Maybe years of thinking only of black revenge had relieved him of all possible remaining sanity.  Maybe he was in love.

No.  Ninjas like him, bent on revenge, didn't fall in love.

"Sasuke?  Sasuke?  Are you ignoring me?  Sasuke?!  SASUKE?!!"  

"Fucking hell!"  The dark-haired boy spun on his heel, glare boring into the girl's hysterical eyes, her knobby white hands gripping his sleeve.  He brushed the touch violently off and backed away.  "What do you WANT?"

Sakura looked near tears at his outburst, but merely bit her bottom lip, hesitated, then blurted, "I was just worried about you, you were so quiet."

Sasuke wondered if it had occurred to her that he was always quiet.  Actually, no, he didn't care.  Ninjas like him didn't fall in love.  They didn't care.  And he hated them both.  Sakura and Naruto.  Mostly Sakura.

"Um, I wanted to ask you, Sasuke…" The pink-haired girl tried to reestablish conversation, running to catch up with Sasuke, who had hastily begun to walk away, back down the path.  "…Where do you think Kakashi-sensei is taking us?"  

Sasuke didn't even bother to shrug.  He just remained silent and slowly, neglected, and discouraged, Sakura fell behind, farther and farther.  Her face was shadowed, and for once her aggression towards pursuing her teammate was doused.  Sasuke walked on, thinking only of one person.  And that person did not have cold hands.

----------

Naruto was the last one to reach Kakashi's designated meeting spot in the wood.  He had grumbled the entire way from the fight sight out loud, mumbling and moaning about 'goddamned Sasuke stupid prick with the big ego I'll kick his ass' until his voice grew hoarse.  The dusty, sweaty little ninja made a beeline for the basket that held their lunches, throwing open the top and extracting the first thermos that he came to, tipping it over his open mouth, the cold, clear liquid gushing forth.

Sasuke, the first to have arrived, watched stealthily form his perch high in a tree nearby, fingers entwined in front of his face.  Dark eyes roamed over his teammate with excellently disguised relish, lingering upon the wet, glistening pink lips that were licked clean of remaining drops of water, and parted in a sigh of relief.  As soon as Naruto had replaced the thermos, those dark eyes looked away and closed, as if they had never been open.

Sakura, who had arrived shortly after Sasuke, sat on a log, scuffing at the hard-packed dirt ground with the toe of her sandal, looking dejected and put out.  Occasionally she would steal glances at Sasuke, partially hidden up in the tree, then blush and return her gaze to the dirt.

Naruto looked around the clearing, made a loud, obnoxious yawning noise, stretched a bit, then promptly plopped down onto the forest floor and crossed his legs.  "Neeee…… where's Kakashi-sensei?"  He asked aloud to no one in particular, pouting, knowing that no one would answer him.  Late, of course, his senior Jonin- and for some odd reason, that jerk that had beat him, Sasuke, was missing too.  When Naruto finally realized that Sakura was stealing glances up into a tree, he peered skyward into the foliage and spotted a blur of movement.  The vulpine boy growled low and deep in his throat, remembering the little tussle from earlier, and adding another hash mark to the list of "Times Sasuke Has Done Things That I Will Get Revenge For."  The list was growing extraordinarily long.

His thoughts were interrupted quite effectively as Kakashi strolled leisurely into the clearing.  He was blushing and humming to himself, nose in a book (trashy romance novel) as he walked.  When he spotted Naruto and Sakura, he stopped and snapped the book shut.  "Well."  He cleared his throat.  "I see you're all here.  Nice, nice."  Naruto, whose eyes had been on the book, blinked in confusion as the text was suddenly gone, vanishing into almost thin air.  Then his instructor was placing broad, long-fingered hands onto his hips, and turning towards them to speak.  Naruto noticed how Kakashi shifted his angle slightly to be able to project his voice towards all three of them, even though he knew that Kakashi had not once looked up into the tree than Sasuke was in.

"You all made it.  I'm surprised Naruto wasn't late."  The Jonin was quite possibly smiling.  Damned mask wouldn't tell.  Naruto stuck his tongue out, and reached for the food basket again, but a blur of movement had a second Kakashi instantly next to him, holding the basket up and out of reach.  "Nuh-uh."  Smiled the replica, then it disappeared, and the original ninja was now holding the basket.  "Lunch is for later.  Except for Naruto, who already drank a thermos without my permission.  He won't get any."

Naruto paled.  _What??  How did Kakashi-sensei know that he'd taken it??  ……Oh.  Well, considering who the silver-haired man was, it shouldn't have been such a surprise._

"But I'm _hungry!"  _He wailed angrily, crossing his arms.

Kakashi turned a (?) grin onto his pouting vulpine face, and said rather happily, "Then eat some dirt."

Sakura laughed, and Naruto just grumbled.  "Ninja should be prepared to find food in the most unlikely of places, in case of a dire situation should ever arise."  Kakashi then added, and a few leaves fluttered down from the tree behind him.  Sasuke dropped onto the ground gracefully, and silently joined Naruto, completing the semicircle of students surrounding their teacher.  Naruto shot him a suspicious glance, then went right back to pouting.

Sakura seemed to have been waiting for Kakashi to take the initiative in explaining their mission, but since the Jonin seemed more inclined to joke around, she spoke up, looking as if images of sandy beaches were rooted firmly in her mind.  "Kakashi-sensei… what is our retreat, then?"

"Oh?"  The ninja turned towards her, holding the basket up out of a jumping/grasping Naruto's reach.  "You don't know yet?"

Sakura looked confused.  "No…?"

Naruto stopped grabbing and looked at Sakura, then Sasuke, then back to Kakashi.  "What?  What is it?"

Kakashi must have grinned, because the expression as reflected in his eyes.

"This 'retreat' is also a training exercise.  I'm holing you all up together in pairs for two weeks at a time.  You need to learn how to cooperate, tolerate, and get along with one another."

Naruto's face was instantly red.  _A- a whole _two weeks_ with Sakura, alone?  Just the two of us??_

"The location will be different each time, and I will only give you a vague description."  Kakashi seemed to thoroughly enjoy the idea of torturing his pupils.  "And I hope to see positive results reflected in your future teamwork."

Naruto was hyperventilating by now.  He glanced at Sasuke, who was staring at nothing.  Boring jerk.  He then risked a glance at Sakura, who was looking blatantly at Sasuke with big girly googly eyes.  Irritating jerk.  Now that he saw those eyes of hers directed at Sasuke with such a look, she suddenly seemed a lot less attractive.

"The first two week period… will be Sasuke and Sakura."  Kakashi read from the back of his hand, where he had randomly seemed to scribble out names, dates, and locations with smudged ink.  Naruto's face fell.  "It will be in an underground cave.  Very cold, wet, and bad-smelling.  Please do not fall prey to the diseases carried by the sick people quarantined there."  The Jonin said with glee.  "Next will be Naruto and Sakura.  A cabin up north by a lake.  I timed it so that it is in the middle of a snow-storm.  I hope you two are able to burrow out alive before frostbite hits."  He said with equal cheeriness as before.  "The third will be, of course, Naruto and Sasuke.  It will be south of here, in an abandoned temple surrounded by nothing but sand, rocks, and more sand.  The temperature is a constant 112 degrees Fahrenheit.  Remember to bring sunscreen."  None of the three students seemed to have noticed that Kakashi had apparently run out of room to write all this down on his hand, and was currently reading from a napkin;  they were too busy being frozen in shock, imaging the nightmares to come.

A cool breeze came by.  Nobody moved.  Kakashi looked around.  He poked Naruto.  

The breeze died down.  A bird chirped.

Kakashi took out a trashy romance novel book.

Sasuke broke the stillness first by turning and walking away.

Sakura was next, staggering over to the stump Naruto had been sitting on, and sinking down, her knees trembling.  Finally Naruto moved- two feet, by collapsing directly vertical onto his rear end, beads of cold sweat rolling down his face.

"Hmmmmm, what's this?"  Kakashi pulled a piece of paper out from between the pages of his book.  "Ooh, how lucky.  I didn't know it came with a free set of stationary.  I must save this."  He slipped it into his pocket, humming, then stood up.  Sasuke had nearly made it all the way back over the crest of the hill, towards the village.  Kakashi said in a voice loud enough for all three of them to hear, "First pair, be ready to go first thing in the morning.  I will meet you here."  He turned to Naruto.  "Since you're not paired up with either until the second set of 2-weeks, you will remain in the village to train.  Understood, Naruto?"  He said cheerily.  

Naruto nodded, imaging the horrible prospect of being trapped in the middle of the desert with Sasuke for two weeks.  He didn't want to resort to cannibalism if he didn't have to, but…

Sasuke had paused up on the very lip of the hill to listen.  He continued on his way once Kakashi had finished, and Sakura stood suddenly, knees still trembling a bit, and dashed after him, seeming to have recovered.

Kakashi watched them go, then started and snapped his fingers as if to jog his own memory.  "I forgot about lunch!  They left so suddenly…"

Naruto pushed the horrid images out of his mind as soon as 'lunch' filtered in one ear and out the other.  "Ne… K-Kakashi-sensei… does that mean I can have theirs?" 

Kakashi turned to him with a smile and said rather happily, "NO."

"B-but-"

"Dirt is good to eat, Naruto.  Very good practice for future training…"

//end flashback//

----------

fin 

Chapter two coming soon!

Please review!  I will love you forever, AND it will make the next chapter come out faster ne!!!  ;_;


	2. I Hate I Love I Hate

Title:  Cold Hands

Series:  Naruto

Author:  Coyen

Pairing:  Sasuke x Naruto

Rating:  PG-13

Disclaimer:  I don't own Naruto, this writing is merely for entertainment purposes.

Author's Notes:  This might be slightly AU, or OOC, I think.  Please forgive me, I have limited knowledge of the actual plotline and characters.  I just wanted to write this pairing for pleasure.  Please enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE review!  (---desperate)

Chapter Two:  I Hate I love I Hate

Sasuke stopped when he reached the stump in the center of the clearing.  He was extra early, it was still dark out;  he'd come this early on purpose.

The dark-haired boy squatted down in front of it, staring.  He looked self-consciously about him, just for a moment, ensuring privacy, then resettled, assured that no other eyes were watching.  Reaching out, slowly, he tenderly touched the edge, fingers feeling the cool wood with a bitter longing.  He let his hand ghost out over the surface, memorizing every niche and nook, every smooth curl of the old, dead wood.  Eyelashes fluttered down and still over pale cheeks, and his lips parted as a sigh escaped.  In his mind rose a flawless image of a golden-haired, vulpine boy with a grin and a dirt-smudged face.  He radiated youth and energy and excitement, and something else, something deeply rooted, feline, or feral, wild and wicked and untamed-  Sasuke couldn't named it, he wasn't sure he ever would be able to.

Naruto was sitting on the stump before him, suddenly.  Sasuke's eyes were open and his parted lips breathless.  The mischievous boy in front of him was not the Naruto seen by the rest of the world;  no, this was an entirely different being altogether.  The boy in front of him was sad, almost.  He wore only a tattered pair of shorts, and every rib poked out in obvious hunger.  Two thin, tanned arms were wrapped around knees drawn-up, and vulpine, slitted eyes were wide open, blue, so blue, and filled with tears.  This Naruto was a child, a mere child, only six or seven, and full of grief and sorrow, sadness and strife.  Something about the child before him, crying silently, eyes pleading for his love made Sasuke's heart do a little spin-stop.  All of the coldness he kept bottled up in his gut melted away and was replaced by a longing, a deep, passionate, wanton longing to just _touch_ another, to feel, to be comforted and to comfort in turn.  Things he couldn't remember ever knowing.

But something held him back.  A part of his mind that was so firmly rooted to the shadows of nurtured hate and loathing that it forbid him from being human.  It wasn't allowing him to be the person he wanted to be- not until he had his revenge.  Not until he had rid himself of this hate deep in his heart. 

"I'm sorry."  The words fumbled past Sasuke's lips, sounding strange and foreign to his own ears.

The child looked at him again, and this time it was without pleading.  It was simply a look of things lost, chances misses, memories forgotten.  Things that could have been.  Regrets.

"No regrets."  The wondrous vision said.  "No regrets, no regrets."

Sasuke couldn't move.  He felt transfixed, as if a hand had reached inside his body and took hold of his soul, pulling him, pulling him forward.  He was hurtling towards nothing.

The golden-haired child reached out to him with thin arms, tanned, scratched skin and nimble little groping fingers.  "Please."  It choked on its own hoarse sobs.  "I want to be loved.  I want a mommy.  I want a daddy.  I don't want to be ignored anymore.  I'm sorry for whatever I did wrong, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please…"  The tears were streaming down his face, pooling onto the wood, soaking into it and the deep mahogany rings of its long life.

"I-"  Sasuke began to say, and the hand holding his soul pulled him forward, catching his breath, forcing him to reach out his own fingers, unfolding clenched fists, stretching towards the child of a shadowed past-

Then it was gone.  The sun had begun to rise.

Cold air swirled around him, alone with his ghosts and vanished visions, and Sasuke shivered.

"This time of night and day, this sliver of a moment right between waking and sleeping, the dark of the world and the light of the world-  it makes people see strange things."

Sasuke jumped, startled, unable to mask his surprise.  Kakashi was standing directly beside him.  His hair glinted silver as the sun slowly rose.

"This is twilight's love, Sasuke.  The opposite of it.  It is a rare moment that gives physical form to the deepest emotions and thoughts of unsuspecting ninja, rendering them vulnerable."  Kakashi placed a comforting hand on the dark-haired boy's shoulder as Sasuke struggled to regain his stoic composer.  "Don't be frightened or embarrassed."

Sasuke finally managed to stand, face back into its usual mask, and brushed his master's hand off.  His voice was low and soft and bitter.  "I'm not scared."

Kakashi's expression was unreadable as he looked at his student.  He wondered who, or what, Sasuke had been reaching towards before the sun had risen and the trance of the waking-sleeping hour had been broken.  Those weird and wonderful visions that appeared to people were only visible _by_ those people, even in the case of a ninja with the sharingan eye.  All he knew was that Sasuke had been so deeply, emotionally moved by it, that the young man hadn't realized Kakashi was present until the older man spoke.

"Um… ano… sensei?  Sasuke?"  Sakura had just come down the path, and was watching worriedly.

Kakashi smiled.  "Come on now, Sakura, you're early too."  The sun had finally risen enough to douse the whole clearing in bright sunlight.

Sasuke refused to look anywhere but at an invisible speck of something on his sandal, even when Kakashi and Sakura both gathered around him.  Sakura was still staring at Sasuke in mild curiosity.

"Now."  Kakashi said happily.  "Assuming that you are both well equipped with everything you might possibly need for the retreat, we will be off."

"I'm all ready."  Sakura said eagerly, finally looking from Sasuke to her sensei.

Sasuke said nothing, but lightly rested a hand on the various objects saddled to his hips and back- a blanket, cans of food, a money pouch.

Kakashi nodded happily.  "Good.  I'm gonna have to ask you to cover your eyes, however-  you don't need to know how I got you there or back."  

Sakura looked suspicious at this, but did as she was told, copying Sasuke in pulling the hitae-ate headband down to cover her eyes.

----------

The first thing that Sasuke noticed upon entering the 'cave', with all his senses alert and sharpened due to loss of vision, was the incredibly strong, foul stench.  It seemed to overpower everything else, it so thick that there seemed to be no air, just this lurid stink that drowned you in a sea of corpses.  

"OMIGOD!  THIS PLACE SMELLS SO BAD!"  Was the very first thing that Sakura blurted carelessly out.  Sasuke could just see her covering up her nose and face with her knobby white hands, handicapping herself even further.  _She disgusts me, she is so weak_- the bitter, frozen side of him hissed.  

"O~kay."  Kakashi said from somewhere nearby in a sing-song voice.  "You can remove your headbands now."

It took only moments for Sasuke's eyes to adjust to the dimness of the cave.  He pushed his headband back up into place and looked around.  They were at the entrance, so a trickle of light was still slipping in.  But Sasuke knew that the further in they went, that light would be totally lost, and the three of them would be immersed in dark.

"O~kay, I'm off."  Kakashi said with a smile and a wave, then disappeared.

……Or, maybe, the _two of them_ would be in the dark.

While Sakura stared around her, sputtering and protesting, Sasuke began to set out across the slippery stones deeper into the heart of the cavern.  "Let's go."

Sakura looked back and forth between the entrance and the retreating back of her crush, before giving up in an anguished wail of frustration and running (slipping, getting back up) after Sasuke.

----------

"This will be a safe place to rest."  Sasuke said out loud more for Sakura's benefit than anything else.  They climbed up on a ledge high above the first large opening in the cave.  It was high up, and gave the two a good view of the space below, the stalactites, the skeletons of people once trapped inside, the place the entered in through and the dark tunnel leading deeper into the belly of the earth.  The ledge had a small fire ring, an old bowl, and a few human-esque bones scattered about, signs that it had once been used by the lepers quarantined here.  It still smelled like vomit and piss.  Sakura had been pinching her nose with two fingers since they started out, and she certainly didn't stop now.

"This is so gross."  She whined.  "For a retreat, not romantic at all."

Sasuke ignored her.  He unraveled the first cloth sack on his back frame, extracting a pouch of dried fruits.  He pushed the old twigs piled up against the wall back into the fire ring and used a small spell and small amount of chakra to light a fire.  He set the pan into the flames and empties the fruit into it.  He poured water in, then a thick powder, and stirred.

Sakura was instantly at his side.  "Wow, are you making dinner, Sasuke?  This feels good, so warm.."  She held her hand sup to the flames, sighing exaggeratedly.  Sasuke thought detachedly that Sakura would certainly die on this mission if she was by herself.

He didn't know if that was a good thing or not- would Kakashi-sensei fail him if he returned to find Sasuke eating the pink-haired corpse's share of food?

Otherwise, it was a perfectly good thing.

By now, his odd mixture in the pan was boiling and smelling sweet, even if not strong enough to drive away the stench of the cave.  After a few more moments, the two ninja pulled out spoons and ate it, Sasuke chewing in silence while Sakura rambled on and on.  He figured he'd pass this test easily if he just tolerated Sakura to the point where she could talk and he didn't have to say anything.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be so easy, as he was to quickly learn.

The first few days went fine;  Sasuke cooked all the meals, built the fires, kept an eye out for anything suspicious or living (highly unlikely) and Sakura rambled on happily with two fingers pinching her nose shut and a nasal voice.  

And then, on the fourth day, the idiot tripped and fell.

Into a deep crack in the cavern floor.

Sasuke took a few moments to listen (with great pleasure) to her high-pitched cries of fear and pain fading as she fell before taking the initiative.  He easily leapt down, straightening his body till he fell faster and he caught up with her, grabbed one flailing arm, threw shuriken, into the wall and held on tight while landing on the protruding weapons.  As she dangled limp from fainting of fear, he threw more and more shuriken up, making a kind of ladder, and climbed back out.

The next few days were annoying, as Sakura proceeded to apologize profusely and thank him with the same amount of gushing enthusiasm at every opportunity / waking moment.  He eventually told her to shut up, gave the girl a biting Uchiha brand glare, and left it at that.

The seventh day, Sakura wandered off when Sasuke was sleeping, and gotten lost.

After two days of searching, Sakura told him through her blubbering that she thought she'd heard a kitten meowing piteously for help.  She then proceeded to eat and drink hers, and Sasuke's, portions of food and water for at least five days in the span of two hours.

By the time the end of the second week was approaching, Sasuke wanted to jump off a cliff.  No, better yet, feed Sakura into a paper shredder, bit by wretched bit.

"Sasuke… do you hate me?"

Sasuke looked up, brow creased, at the sudden question after almost an hour of walking in silence.  

"No."  

The girl's face looked relieved for a moment, then she seemed to think about his answer for a few seconds, and change her mind about something.  "Then… why do you ignore me, or tell me to shut up?"

Sasuke walked quietly for a few minutes, then said softly, "Because you're annoying."  He could hear a brief faltering in the pattern of footsteps on rock behind him.  "I don't along with people like you."

Sakura's voice had an edge of panic to it when she blurted out the next few words.  "Then… then who _do_ you get along with?"

Sasuke didn't hesitate either in his answer.  "People who are honest.  Who wear their emotions on their coatsleeve.  Who I can trust.  Who are strong, both inside and out."  A smiling Naruto rose unbidden to his mind's eye.  "Who bring warmth and light to dark places…"

He cut himself off when he realized what he had said, and vowed to remain silent for the rest of the day in order to further prevent himself from saying anything else equally as stupid.  His words seemed to have also shut Sakura up, who was probably just a little shocked that Sasuke had an inner poet of sorts, even though Sasuke would never actually admit to that.

Later that day, when Sasuke judged the sun was setting outside, they buckled down for the last night in the cavern.  They were nearly into the belly of the earth now;  there was no light whatsoever- in fact, the air seemed to suck the light from their fire up before it could reach more than three or four feet.  After a small, carefully proportioned supper of what food remained, the two curled up for bed, each on opposite sides of the fire, with their backs to it for warmth, facing outward to awake at any sound of enemies.

Sasuke waited for the sound of Sakura's breathing to become even and regular, then relaxed when he knew that she was asleep, and allowed himself to think.  The boy curled up under his thin blanket, and sighed.  He wondered what Naruto was doing now.  Probably eating ramen, or dreaming or becoming the next Hokage.  Such a silly dream.  Sasuke smiled anyway, he couldn't help himself.  Ambitions like those were cute.

When he had his eyes closed like this, now, he could almost imagine Naruto there, in front of him, grinning like a fox and laughing even though the boy felt lonely inside.  His gaze traveled from that gold-blond hair, reflecting the firelight, seeming to burn like an archangel's-  to that unblemished skin, tanned from days spent outside vandalizing statues and street-shops, and imagined it felt soft, like velvet or silk.  He saw Naruto's hands, flung palm-up in oblivious slumber, fingers long and thin and nimble-  he imagined their touch, on his cheek, his neck, his shoulders, his chest- and blushing, even lower.  He knew that they'd be warm.  He knew that they'd bring heat to cold places, hold him in warmth at night.

Sasuke's face was slowly reddening in color, heat rushing to his cheeks.  The firelight made Naruto even more gorgeous than the sunlight, and when the vulpine boy was suddenly there, beside Sasuke, stretched out on his side on that thin blanket and sleeping so peacefully, the vision reversed the flow of heat from Sasuke's face to his body, burning all the way down, making his spine shiver.  He kept his eyes tightly closed, afraid that this nighttime vision would fade, desperate to keep it alive.

Naruto's sleeping face was different from his waking one.  It wasn't twisted in glee or a façade or happiness to cover up for the loneliness and bitterness-  it was relaxed, settled, smiling just slightly.  The boy's lashes looked like ashes on his cheeks, delicate and fine.  His skin seemed to glow, and radiate warmth- the whole expanse of it, bared to the night.  Paired with the blond hair illuminated to gold with the flames, the sleeping boy looked like a faerie creature, something unreal.  The thin body was beautiful, with just enough muscle tone to look less childish than adult.  Sasuke's face burned, but not in shame that Naruto was a boy, but in something else- the feelings that were oblivious to gender- love.

This surreal vision lingered, and Sasuke knew that as soon as he opened his eyes, it would be gone- so he didn't dare to wake yup.  In his dream his reached out, slowly, afraid that the sleeping boy would be made of glass, and would shatter at the slightest touch- and let his fingertips rest as light as air on one golden cheek.  He could feel Naruto's hot breath, exhaled in oblivious slumber, ghost over his palm, and he shivered automatically.  His fingertips traveled across the cheek and down to the neck, trailing across the smooth chest.  He had been right.  Naruto's skin felt like velvet.

Sasuke's unoccupied hand slowly snaked its way down, underneath his blanket.  His breath was coming ragged now, his eyes squeezed shut in a physical and mental effort to keep this Adonis, this impossible vision, alive.  His face was red, and beads of sweat had begun to break out across his own pale skin, forming like drops of dew.  The hand that wasn't touching this lovely vision was touching himself, slowly, stroking, imaging Naruto as the owner, imaging the golden-haired boy closer, and closer, pressing kisses to his forehead.  The hand moved faster, then faster, harder, scratching gently with nails, kneading, moving up and down, up and down.  He was panting now, breathing heavily, making soft little moans, mewling almost like a kitten.  He imagined Naruto to be there, arms around him, pressing in close, holding him, and their hands were one.  Sasuke gasped into his blanket, surrounded by a blinding golden glow and a heat that filled every part of his body.  His hips lifted into the air, thrusting at nothingness, and the imaginary Naruto was crying out his name, so he cried out the other's.  

The sounds caught in his throat and became warbled, murmured, as he sighed, hand falling away, belly plastered with something thick and hot.  His eyes opened, and focused blearily onto the cave wall before him, barely illuminated by firelight.  Shame filled his being, shame at what he'd done, what he'd thought, what he'd felt.  He managed to push himself up, just slightly, and reached for the cloth in bag to clean himself off with, face red with the afterglow and lingering image of Naruto, back arched in ecstasy, face pink in shameless pleasure-

"S-  Sasuke………"

He froze, and turned around to face over the smoldering fire, so slowly that one blink felt like a lifetime of waves on the shore.

Sakura, red-faced, was staring at him with eyes wide as saucers, lips parted in breathless shock, expression the epitome of horror.

----------

The morning that Kakashi came to collect his pupils after their two weeks of isolation was a very awkward one indeed.  They waited, backs to each other, in utterly complete silence, no one moving or speaking.  Everything was packed up and neat, and all emotions were effectively hidden.

Kakashi didn't say anything, dying of curiosity inside to know what had happened, and asked them to cover their eyes before leading the two out of the cavern and back into daylight.

----------

Fin

To be continued soon in chapter three!

Please, PLEASE review!  I want to know what you think!  I hope Sasuke didn't disgust anyone, that was really a very poignant moment for his character development in the fic, where he recognizes how Naruto makes his body feel.  I hope you all liked!!  And no flames from Sakura-lovers please, flames make me sad. ;_;

The more reviews, the faster the chapters come out, and the more fanservice I include ne!

^_^


	3. My Decrepit Thoughts Betray You

Title:  Cold Hands

Series:  Naruto

Author:  Coyen

Pairing:  Sasuke x Naruto, Kakashi x Iruka

Rating:  PG-13 -- R(?)

Disclaimer:  I don't own Naruto, this writing is merely for entertainment purposes.

Author's Notes:  This might be slightly AU, or OOC, I think.  Please forgive me, I have limited knowledge of the actual plotline and characters.  I just wanted to write this pairing for pleasure.  Please enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE review!  (---just a little desperate)

Chapter Three:  My Decrepit Thoughts Betray You

"Yeah… yeah… yeah…"  Naruto repeated under his breath again and again and again, sweat rolling down his brow as he lifted weights in his shabby top-floor home.  He was thinking about being alone with Sakura for two whole weeks… this was it!  He was finally going to get some action!  It wasn't even really about Sakura specifically anymore, it was just about getting some in general… he didn't care who anymore, as long as he could start bragging along with the other boys of his village about sex, like back when they were in class…

And maybe… be a part of their group, too.

Naruto's face turned suddenly dark, and the pace with which he lifted the weights increased.  _Damnit… Kakashi went to pick up Sasuke and Sakura this morning… no telling what those two did!  All alone in a dark cave… she probably got scared and held onto him…_  A spurt of blood shot from his left nostril as the image of Sakura pulling off Sasuke's shirt and him grabbing her close rose to his mind.  _Fucking hell!  They probably boinked like crazy!_  He almost wanted to cry, then recovered from his brief bout of melodrama, swearing, not even realizing the exact details of his daydream that had caused the nosebleed.

"It's not fair… how come that guy has such a weird power, making all the girls fall in love with him?"  The blond-haired boy asked no one in particular, setting down the weights and sighing, rubbing the drops of sweat from his forehead with the back of a hand.  "Stupid jerk…"

Naruto stood and looked around.  But that was all behind him now!  It was time for _his_ two-week retreat with Sakura!  And he was going to make her fall _hard_ for his charms!  Now… had he packed enough underwear?

The young ninja-in-training started rifling through his bags.  All… eight of them.  He had to be sure that everything he would need for the upcoming trip was here, couldn't be caught unprepared for anything, as Kakashi-sensei would probably say…  he had his toothbrush, his extra sandals, some comics, instant hot-packs, two blankets… condoms…

_OHHH YEAH!  _The boy grinned and made sure _those_ little guys were packed squarely away.  He was _definitely_ going to get into Sakura's pants… no doubt about it… he was _determined_ to lose his virginity one way or another!

A knock on the door stunned the ninja out of his gleeful, lecherous laughter, and he jumped to answer it.  It was Iruka, smiling happily.  Sakura and Sasuke were standing just behind him.

"Ne, Naruto… I'm taking these two out for ramen in congratulations of completing their mission without any problems.  Want to come?"  The chounin asked, already knowing, of course, the answer.

"WAI!"  Naruto jumped forward, paused, turned to grab his bags, scrambled back to the others and slammed the door behind him.  "YOSHI!  Let's go!"  He was grinning impishly as the four began to walk down the hallway.  "But why did you get me?  I thought it was a treat for the ones who had finished their mission…"

Iruka didn't break his pace, answering fluidly.  "I wasn't going to, but Sasuke here mentioned how much you like ramen, and knowing this and that you'd be disappointed if you found out, I decided to invite you anyway."  Naruto glanced suspiciously over at Sasuke after his sensei was finished speaking.  Sasuke's face held no emotions except for a faint blush, probably from walking up all the stairs that lead to Naruto's home.  When he looked at Sakura, however, her face was pale, and her eyes troubled, as if she had seen a ghost.  Something wasn't right here, he could feel it.

But right now, all he could think of was ramen, and he didn't feel like worrying about anything else.

----------

"Now that you two have had your fill… it's time to go!"  Kakashi had appeared quite unexpectedly in the restaurant, standing next to Iruka and directing his voice at Sakura and Naruto, both of whom choked on their noodles.

"Kakashi-kun, give them a break, ne?" Iruka said fondly to his lover.  This intimate information was hardly known by his students, but he was afraid some of them had guessed, anyway.  "They're still eating…"

"Aa, aa…"  Kakashi took a seat by the older man, pressing their thighs together beneath the counter and smiling underneath his mask, aware that no one had noticed his actions.  "In a few minutes, then…"

Sakura seemed to have recovered a bit from earlier, probably thanks to the warm ramen.  "Kakashi-sensei can be so cruel…"  She said quietly, staring into the soup of her noodles.  Naruto looked at her quizzically.  

"He's just eager to get the mission started… I am too!"  Naruto dumped the rest of the bowl into his wide mouth, and swallowed greedily.

"Naruto is certainly energetic…"  Iruka said softly, beginning to fidget a bit.  It wasn't much longer that he would be able to maintain a decent (seemingly chit-chat) conversation with Kakashi without _someone_ being bound to notice that something fishy was going on.  Kakashi laughed slightly.

"I'm afraid he looks forward to the retreat too much… he really expects it to be much more entertaining than it _will_ be… you know me, Iruka, I don't tend to ever go _easy_ on my students…"  He pressed his thigh up against his lover's again, firmer this time.

"Aa…"  Iruka felt his control slipping.  It _had_ been a while since they'd had a chance to sleep together…

While Sakura quietly ate her noodles, focusing all her attention on them and forcing herself not to think about what she'd seen back in the cave, and Naruto ordered a second bowl with fervor, Sasuke studied his two sensei.  Something was odd about the blush on Iruka's face, and the perverted grin that was obvious beneath Kakashi's mask.  His gaze traveled downward… and his eyes widened in shock.  Their thighs…!

He couldn't believe it.  He simply couldn't.  He'd though he was a freak, he thought he was sick, not normal because of his long-ago realization that he was attracted to boys, and not girls… but here, right here, under his very nose and everyone else's, Kakashi and Iruka were very cleverly hiding an obvious intimacy!  He knew immediately based on how close the Jonin sat, how they pressed their bodies in close, how, almost entirely hidden by their clothing and positions, Kakashi's hand had crept stealthily into Iruka's lap, and was resting on his inner thigh…

Sasuke looked away, blushing beet red, unsure of what to do.  So he wasn't alone… the thought calmed him, reassured him, to an extent.

He wasn't alone.

That was all he needed to know.

"Well!"  Kakashi said cheerily as he stood a few minutes later, leaving Iruka an unhealthy shade of red, and everyone having finished their noodles.  "Let's head out, Sakura, Naruto!"  Kakashi glanced at Iruka, gaze lingering suggestively.  "We'll be back soon…"  His voice was a notch lower, and huskier, than usual.  Iruka nodded, blushing again.  It seemed that Sasuke was the only one to notice this.

Sakura stood solemnly.  "I'm ready."

"M-me too, sensei!"  Naruto leapt to his feet.

"Good."  Kakashi said happily, and walked out the door, the two ninja following.

"Come, Sasuke, I'll escort you home."  Iruka stood, smiling at his student, and paid the man behind the counter.

When normally Sasuke would have said "No need", or "I'll be fine by myself", he chose instead to let his sensei walk him home, and think about a few new discoveries along the way.

----------

"Heeeere we are."  Kakashi said in a sing-song voice, and the two young ninja pulled down their headbands from their eyes to find themselves standing on the porch of a really, really crappy log cabin.  A light dusting of snow made the cracking, rotting wooden steps slippery, and the flurries falling on their heads promised a large snowstorm yet to come.  The walls of the house had obvious holes in them, and little burrows that gave homes to snakes, rats, and other assorted vermin.  The shingles were even falling off of the roof-  but the worst part was yet to come.

As soon as Kakashi opened the door, both young ninja's faces paled.  There was nothing but for two sparsely furnished beds, a kohatsu that didn't heat up, a crumbling cabinet, and a sink with decidedly rusted-over handles, whose ability to produce clean water was undoubtedly questionable.

_Where are the _WALLS?!  Was the first coherent though that came to Sakura's mind.

_W- w- where am I gonna _PISS?!  Was the first to Naruto's.

"Have fun."  Kakashi said cheekily before disappearing in a hurry, obviously having somewhere else he would much rather be.  The two ninja stared in silence.

"I don't know which is worse, this or the cave…"  Sakura said with a grimace, thinking of having to spend two whole weeks in here.  She had really, really bad karma.

Naruto recovered quickly, clapping his hands together.  "YOSHI!  Let's go!"  He walked into the room, and threw his stuff down on the floor, Sakura following him in at a precarious pace.  "Okay… which bed do you want?"  A mischievous gleam rose to his slitted eyes in mere nanoseconds after the first words were uttered.  "Or… we can _share_ the same bed…"

"IDIOT!"  Sakura nailed him the cheek, then calmly went back to unpacking her belongings.  "No way, Naruto, give it UP!"

Naruto muttered darkly as he picked himself up off the floor.  "It would conserve heat… it's supposed to be cold right…"  He mumbled as he crawled over to the bed on the opposite side of the cabin that Sakura had chosen.

After only five minutes, Naruto had decided he was starving and was eating quite noisily from one of his bags.  When he glanced over his shoulder and across the line through the middle of the room the Sakura had drawn with chalk, he choked and jumped to his feet.  "W-what are you doing?!"  There was an edge of panic to his voice.

Sakura was busy unfolding a large, thick rice paper dressing-wall that couldn't have possibly fit into her bag, and was stretching it out across the line she had drawn on the floor.  "I'm giving us separate rooms."

"But, but..."  Naruto looked traumatized.  "But the sink is on your side!  And the door, too!"

"Lucky me."  Was the only thing Naruto could make out now that the wall was finished and only muffled noises came through.  He slumped down onto his bed, looking miserable.

"This sucks."  He muttered to himself.  "How on earth did she think to bring something like that?  And now I won't even be able to *see* her…"  He slouched even more, food forgotten.  After a few minutes of moping, he froze in shock again.  _W-wait… the door is on her side… how am I gonna *piss*?!_

----------

//meanwhile…//

Sasuke willed his body to be still as ice;  no movements, no sound, no nothing.  He forced the blood flowing in his veins to become sluggish, forced his heartbeat into suspended animation.  He could have been one with the tree branch that he was resting on, he had become so akin to a statue.  But even at this degree of camouflage, he wasn't sure it would be enough to keep Kakashi and his legendary Sharingan eye from finding him out.  He could only wait and see.

From his perch outside of Iruka's home, looking into the bedroom through the window, Sasuke thought deeply.  He had followed his sensei after the older man had left Sasuke's home, determined to see more of this forbidden thing that was discovered at dinner.  Curiosity and a need to be reassured of his own life's decisions and sexuality forced him to do this, to spy like so.  An ache was starting to form in his calve muscles from holding such a rigid position, but he ignored it.  He had to see.  He had to.

Iruka was bent over some papers at his desk, scribbling distractedly.  The pen kept slipping from his fingers and blotting ink onto the scroll, as if Iruka's concentration was far, far from the assignments.  Sasuke watched irritably as the hour passed.  Had he been wrong?  Had he read Kakashi's body language wrong?  He had been led to believe that Kakashi was going to return to see Iruka right after he had dropped Naruto and Sakura off.  (Which he was forcing his mind to *not* think about right now..)  Had he missed a small detail somewhere?

Sasuke's agonizing doubts were dispelled when the door to Iruka's bedroom creaked open.  Iruka jumped slightly, looking up, startled, then relaxed when he saw who the visitor was.  His smile was genuinely happy as Kakashi entered the room, waving and grinning.

"I thought you weren't coming…"  Iruka's voice was tense, nervous and excited at the same time.

Kakashi half-set half-perched onto the corner of Iruka's desk.  "Well, I'm here now."  He reached over and plucked the pen from his lover's hand.  "And now we have better things to do than grade papers."

Iruka blushed and smiled.  "………I'm glad you came."

Kakashi stood and took Iruka's hand, pulling the chounin easily up.  He tugged the shorter man over towards the bed, smiling wordlessly.  They simply looked at each other for a moment, not in a gushy romantic way, but simply in acknowledgement of the returned feelings of one another, acceptance of what they were about to do, and fondness.  There was an undercurrent of longing, as well, so tangible that it reached even Sasuke, outside on the branches, bent over against the cold wind.

"M- maybe we should… close the window…"  Iruka stammered slightly.  "If anyone were to hear or see us…  we would be…"  He trailed off, as if afraid to voice his fears, afraid of the consequences that he knew existed for the acts he had committed and was about to commit.

"No."  Kakashi said quietly, pulling Iruka close.  "I'm tired of hiding.  I don't care anymore."  For the briefest of moments, Sasuke could have sworn on his soul, the last of his clan, that Kakashi had looked directly out of the window at _him_.  But then it was gone, and the Uchiha boy wasn't entirely sure it had even come about to start with.

Iruka's murmurs of protest were cut off as Kakashi fluidly pulled down his mask and his lips closed over Iruka's.  The instant they were kissing, Iruka seemed to melt into the younger man's embrace, as if he'd been waiting for a very long time.  Kakashi showed this too by leading them quickly over to the bed, and lowering his lover gently down on top of it, never breaking the kiss, and breaking a record with the speed he removed articles of clothing at.

Iruka was the first to break the kiss, blushing wildly.  "Kakashi--"  He blurted out, but Kakashi placed a long, slender finger over his lips.

"Don't worry.  Please, for one night, just one night, _don't worry."_  When that effectively shut the older man up, Kakashi pulled his own vest and shirt over his head, and slunk back down over the shirtless Iruka to reclaim the kisses that were _his_.

Sasuke's eyes had widened to the circular shape of saucers.  His breath caught in his throat, he strangled on it, unable to breathe, unable to think.  His whole face and body felt hot, like he was burning up from the inside out.  His pants were tight and it ached, it was more painful than his legs, where he sat so delicately poised.  Could it be… could it be that Kakashi *knew*?  Knew that he was floundering with his own sexuality, and *wanted* him to see this?  To know that it wasn't some disease, some sickness, and to learn?  To be comforted in the fact that he _wasn't the only one?_

Sasuke didn't know.  He couldn't think, although those decrepit thoughts were still there, simmering in enlightenment, at the back of his mind.  He could only sit still, oh so still, and watch his two sensei make love, long, and slow, and beautiful, several times, calling out each other's names with unabashed passion and adoration.

He couldn't think.  Time was frozen, and he couldn't tear his eyes away.

----------

Naruto was woken up, once again, by the incredible coldness of the room, seeping through his blankets and allowing him no rest.  It had been one whole week already, and he hadn't heard a single sound out of Sakura for the past three days.  Earlier, every time he had tiptoed over to the makeshift wall to get a glimpse of what she was up to, he had been knocked over by the incredible power and force of her voice, shouting and screaming at him to stay away and not even *think* about getting close.  Eventually, exhausted and realizing that he would never be able to put his condoms to use, he had given up on even trying to ask her how she was doing, and had managed to pass the insufferably long, boring bouts of time with sleeping.

That was starting to work less and less, however.  As the snowstorm raging outside became worse with each passing day, it got colder and colder, and the several blankets that Naruto had brought to burrow down in had lessened significantly in their ability to retain what little body heat he had left.  Judging by the smattering of holes in the walls on his side of the room, it was dark out, night, and still snowing.  Naruto sat up in the dim room, shivering as the blankets fell off from around him.  He looked around curiously, and over at the wall.  

For a few moments he just sat there, staring at the wall, rubbing his hands up and down his arms, trying vainly to build heat up with friction.  All around him was silence;  the stillness of night, the falling of snow that was like soft breath from the sky onto the earth.  Just his labored breathing was heard.  And then… something else.  A small, muffled sound coming from behind the temporary wall.

Crawling stiffly with the cold over towards the wall, Naruto tried his hardest, painfully, to not make any sounds.  He drew his body up close to the edge of the fold-out wall, and slipped nimble fingers just behind the wood pane, pulling slightly.  The edge of the wall slid seamlessly, allowing him a small sliver of space to peek through or press his ear up against.

On the other side of the cabin, it was dark, and seemed less cold than his own half.  Sakura was curled up into a fetal ball, partly under the kohatsu, which she seemed to have restored to working order, somehow.  That, at least, explained why her side of the room was warmer.  Naruto looked hard, squinting through the dark, to see what was making the noises.

It was, indeed, the petite girl.  Sakura's hands were clenched into fists, and she had her face buried in a pillow, muffled sobs just barely escaping.  She clenched and unclenched her fists in the fabric, flexing the white knuckles slowly, and her tears were languidly dying the cloth from white to gray.  Her hair was a mess, and the edges of her face that he could see were red and puffy-looking, as if she'd been crying for quite some time.

"Why…"

Naruto stiffened at the sound of her distraught voice, feeling strange emotions rise up in his throat, making him choke.

"I don't understand… I just… I can't…"  She seemed to give up voicing her confusion, and went back to sobbing quietly for some time.  When she tried again, her voice was thicker.  "How can you… like him?"

Naruto's eyes widened.  Who was she talking about?  What was she taking about?

"It's wrong… I don't understand… oh, God, Sasuke…"  Her fists clenched in the pillow again, the knuckles starkly white, and her muffled sobs were strangled in her throat.  "I tried everything… I did everything… nothing worked on you, and now I know why… but… I don't understand… I just don't understand… it's sick…"

At the mention of Sasuke's name, all the color drained from Naruto's face.  Sasuke…?  What had the boy done to possibly make Sakura cry like this?  Not the snivelly 'girl's whining' that he was used to with others, but this- real sobs, heartfelt, painful emotions… what had Sasuke _done?_

"How can you be doing _that_… and thinking about _him_…"  Sakura seemed to be trying to get answers from the thin air.  Naruto's dense brain finally caught on, and he visibly backed up, a slight redness creeping across his cheeks as he processed this bit of information.  "How can you…"  Sakura's sobs were shakier now, trembling as they escaped from her lips, remembering things called out in the dark of the night, suffused with ecstasy.  "How can you _love_ Naruto?  How can you, Sasuke?"  

Naruto's fingers fell form the rice-paper wall to his lap.  His breathing could no longer be heard above the deafening silence of the snow outside the cabin.

"It's sick… it's wrong… you're a boy, he's a boy… it just… it just doesn't make sense… I don't understand…"

Naruto slowly slid the wall back into place, and stood, walking silently over to his bed.  Without a word, he climbed back under the covers, and curled up into a position like Sakura's.  Once her muffled sobs had finally died down into the regular breathing rhythms of sleep, he let the tears come.  They soaked down into his pillow, dying it gray like the girl's, even though no sounds escaped his lips, no words of not understanding;  only the realization of something deep inside, something that he now knew, thanks to Sakura, was _wrong_.  

His whole world had just been turned upside-down;  he didn't know anything anymore.  Everything was wrong.  He was wrong.

----------

When Kakashi arrived, one week later, to _once again_ retrieve his students from their training retreat, he was _once again_ baffled to see them both silent and withdrawn, faces emotionless masks.  This was especially unsettling in the case of Naruto, who seemed to always have some kind of emotion, at some kind of obscene degree or intensity, plastered across his face.  But no, the young boy looked sobered, contemplative, as if troubled with many dark thoughts and feelings.  Sakura looked the same before, if a little better from her previous expression of having seen a ghost, or something to that nature.  Kakashi mused that she had probably thought things out a little bit on whatever subject it was that had plagued her before;  as for Naruto, he had absolutely no idea.

It was in silence that the three returned back to the village.  Kakashi wondered, as they sat in a boat with the oarsman rowing steadily, passing across calm waters, what exactly had happened during both of these two-week periods of time to affect his students so immensely.

----------

FIN

To be continued soon in chapter four! 

PLEASE, PLEASE review!  I live by you comments and criticism!  Tell me what you thought of this chapter, or anything else that comes to mind!  Correct me on plot or timeline mistakes!  (But please keep in mind that I am new to the series!!)  Any TeniPuri fans out there, shout out!  

The more reviews, the faster the next chapter comes… reviews are my inspiration to write!!

~Coy


	4. Your Paradise, My Wasteland: part 1

Title:  Cold Hands

Series:  Naruto

Author:  Coyen (Xiao)

Pairing:  Sasuke x Naruto, Kakashi x Iruka

Rating:  R

Disclaimer:  I don't own Naruto, this writing is merely for entertainment purposes.

Author's Notes:  This might be slightly AU, or OOC, I think.  Please forgive me, I have limited knowledge of the actual plotline and characters.  I just wanted to write this pairing for pleasure.  Please enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE review!  (---just a little desperate)

Chapter Three:  Your Paradise, My Wasteland:  part 1

-----

Kakashi sighed deeply, wearily, as he studied his two most promising pupils.  He had absolutely no idea what was going on between the young shinobi, but it simply couldn't be good for future missions and teamwork.  Naruto and Sasuke stood stock still before him, clutching their bags tightly, waiting for the Jonin to take them to wherever he willed.  Sasuke had a deeply solemn, almost sad expression, and was staring hard at the wall directly behind his sensei.  Naruto looked very nearly queasy, eyes fluttering closed from sleepiness, energy drained from what appeared to be many restless nights and a few tears for good measure.  Kakashi continued to stand there, surveying them silently, and after a tense moment, Naruto promptly drifted off to sleep and tipped sideways in Sasuke's direction.  Instantly, before Naruto could fall very far, the Uchiha boy caught his shoulders and propped him back up, the faintest trace of a blush coloring his pale skin and throwing off the stoic demeanor.  Naruto woke with a jolt, and after realizing who had just touched him, even in a seemingly platonic gesture, jumped as if burned further away from his rival.  Sasuke's expression, lighter for just a moment there, quickly fell, and he turned back towards the wall, hiding his shame behind lowered lids.  Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and calmed down his breathing, then blinked sleepily back up at his sensei, unaware of the confused expression blossoming across his young face.

Having watched this entire exchange of wordless emotion, Kakashi brought a slim-fingered hand to his chin, and stroked it in amusement.  Could it be?  There were so many, many things that Sasuke's blush and Naruto's guilty expression could say to him right now.  But the question was… dare he believe it?

Tsk, tsk.  He was such a bad sensei.  Prying into his student's love lives, sharing his own vulgar one with them.  His eyes strayed to Sasuke's, but didn't make contact.  He knew they boy had seen.  Had watched, for almost three hours.  Had gone home and pumped himself dry all over the mundane white sheets in a cold, lonely house.

But, really-  he was in no position to think such things.  Iruka would be jealous.

"I trust you two are ready for your own retreat?"  His voice was smooth and low like silk in the river, and Naruto managed to open one eye completely, while the other stayed fixedly droopy with lack of sleep.

"Yeah.."

Kakashi looked at Sasuke.  "And I'm sure I don't even have to ask with you."  He smiled and clapped his hands together.  "Let's go!"

Sakura watched from the shadows of a doorway as the three all turned and clipped briskly down the hall, but for a few moments here and there when Naruto would drag his weary feet.  Her grip on the side of the doorframe was so tight that the knuckles were white-tipped, but her face held no emotion.  In her mind, however, thoughts were running wild-  clashing, merging, painfully fighting for dominance.  Where were those two going?  What would happen when they were alone?  If Sasuke really… really l-love… really l-_loved_ Naruto, would he t-tell him?  What then?  What would Naruto do?  Surely Naruto would freak out-  after all, Naruto loved HER!  Naruto wasn't sick like that.  As much as she was loathe to admit it, he wasn't _wrong_ like that, he liked girls, he liked her.  

Sakura flushed.  Naruto liked her.  He liked _her_.

-----

So many sounds gathered around him, grating on his nerves, lulling him to sleep.  The horse's whinny as it clipped across the rocky dirt road.  The sound of birds as they passed overhead.  The rasping snore of Kakashi-sensei as the man lay sprawled somewhere nearby.

Naruto's ears were perked to an extreme, since his vision was completely obscured by the hitae-ae headband draped around his eyes.  This time around, he and Sasuke were being transported to their location in a buggy or cart of some sort, horse-driven.  The animal's footsteps became more and more labored as the feel of the wheels on the ground told the young man that they had passed from solid earth to sand, and the dunes were growing higher with each hour that passed.  

Having started out in the early morning, it was now noon, and the sun was a glaring demon in the sky, burning down upon the travelers.  Naruto knew, without looking, that Sasuke was sweating like he was from the intense heat- the fox boy could smell his rival's thick, heady scent, a masculine musk, nearly dripping off his skin and filling the air with some kind of lethal pheromones.  Naruto was also sure that since Sasuke, like him, was unable to see, the Uchiha boy's ears must also be finely tuned into the sounds around them.  Kakashi's snores were the only real downside of this, grating on the nerves more and more as the trip went on.

Well, nobody could see him, Naruto mused, and reached down to scratch at his crotch indiscriminately.  While he was at it, he also had an itch on his back, and another high up on his shoulder.  He didn't have to worry about anyone seeing, either, as Sasuke, who (unfortunately) sat opposite him in the jolting cart was blinded like him, and Kakashi was sleeping.  The driver was up in the front, completely unaware of their actions.

Naruto twisted slightly on the bench, sweat rolling down his spine and between his shoulder blades, and shoved a lithe hand up the back of his orange jacket, scratching furiously.  He breathed a deep-throated sigh of relief, then, after readjusting the garment, began to immediately notice how itchy and hot the fur lining of the collar made it.  The sun didn't seem to be letting up any, so Naruto shrugged mentally and unzipped the thing, shrugging it off his shoulders and sighing happily.  Leaning back in the cart, he promptly fell asleep, weariness overcoming him at last.

-----

Sasuke clenched his fists, popping the knuckles, where they were hidden in the straw.  The cart jolted violently as the horse stumbled, the sand dunes climbing above the hooves to the beast's knees.  He could tell from the sound of the wheels crunching on the terrain like coarse snow, but above that noise was the insufferable din of his sensei's snores.  Sasuke continued to clench his fists.  He had never heard a more wretched sleep-sound.  How could Iruka stand it?

But he had more important problems immediately at hand.  The intense heat of the noonday sun was beating down like cocoon of fire, and sweat was quickly and efficiently soaking his shirt through.  Naruto, he could tell, was sweating profusely as well across from him in the rickety old cart.  He inhaled silently through his nose, and deeply, filling his lungs with the scent.  It was wild, it was… _feral_.  It made something in his blood sing, as if the darkness in his veins was responding to that call, awakening, drawing him closer to the open flower and the sting that followed.  Naruto had no idea, naturally, that his skin's own scent was powerful this way.  It was inhuman, it was… wicked.  Sasuke wanted it to fill the air so much that he'd never rid his lungs of it.  It was as if he was burying his face into that chest, being wrapped in those tan arms, completely enveloped in a thick heady cloud of nothing but Naruto.  Something to diffuse through the air like venom.  Drown him in death.

He jumped, startled like a rabbit out of the brush, when the coarse metallic sound of a zipper being lowered shot through the hot air.  He knew instantly it was Naruto, unzipping his jacket, taking it off, off, off, baring his glistening wild skin to the world.  And suddenly the headband over his eyes was like a damned curse, a veil from something he had never wanted to see so much in his _life_.  Even if he'd wanted to, his Sharingan eye could not have penetrated this, not outside of the heat of battle.  Even if he yearned, with every fiber of his being, to see that lithe, toned expanse of flesh, smothered in beads of sweat, giving off heat into the desert air like a sunburn over asphalt.

Squirming uncomfortably and in shame as his pants grew too tight too quickly, Sasuke desperately tried to force the vivid thoughts from his mind.  Naruto was now asleep, he could tell quite easily when the soft slumber-sounds echoed across to him.  He shouldn't have to worry, but he did anyway.  This was his innermost secret, his hidden lie, his unwanted sin.  If anyone knew, if _anyone_… he mustn't let it show.  No matter how much it hurt to force what bubbled to the surface back down, like swallowing his own bile and feeling the bitter burn eat away at him from the inside as it retreated to the pit of his stomach-  he couldn't let it show.

Curling into a hunched-over ball, the Uchiha boy tried anxiously to will his mind to sleep like the others, but the darkness wouldn't come.  He couldn't find rest with Naruto so close to him, and yet, so far away.

-----

The dunes were becoming treacherously high now.  The poor horse stumbled with each step as the hot sand consumed his legs, again and again, gradually filling the air with the stench of burning hair.  The driver kept the beast moving, however, because the longer the cart stayed still on the sand, the further the wheels would sink, and if their brisk pace stopped for more than a few brief moments, the vehicle could become entirely entrenched.  

Naruto and Kakashi were still sleeping as the journey wore on, even though the jolting of the cart grew more and more violent.  "Move!  Keep moving!"  Sasuke heard the driver yell.  The horse whinnied in pain, but persisted, and the young shinobi felt the smallest twinge of empathy for the creature.  Since when did he pity anyone, and animals, no less?  Since when had he started to notice these things, to care about anything other than his own goals, and those practical to the present situation?  The Uchiha boy lowered his head and hunched his shoulders as the rocking of the unsteady cart made his lithe body sway back and forth.  He wasn't sure, but he knew that it had something to do with Naruto.  It was when he got to know the boy.  When some disgustingly comforting kind of warmth first slipped into his cold life.

Sasuke was caught completely off guard when the wooden vehicle pitched suddenly to the side, the horse yelping in panic.  The blinded boy flew off his bench across the bed of the cart, and slammed brutally into Naruto, who was startled out of sleep.  For a few precious moments they lay entangled, frozen in breathless shock-  then the driver cried out in warning as the cart tipped completely over, spilling the two boys into the burning dustbowl that was the desert.

Naruto screamed, having been the one to land on his back with Sasuke atop him, and ripped off the headband that obscured his vision as searing pain blossomed up his spine, having stripped his now bare torso earlier that day.  Sasuke, recovering quickly, was instantly off his rival and on his feet, hissing at the waves of heat that engulfed them both.  He grabbed Naruto and with a gut-wrenching burst of strength, heaved him to his feet and out of the dunes, relocating them with slight difficulty to the top of the over-turned cart.  Kakashi was busy trying to help the driver control the horse, who was still ensnared in the twisted reins and harness that bound the beast to the wooden structure.  Its panicked whinnies echoed across a vast expanse of mirages and golden slopes, shimmering in the sun.

Naruto rubbed at his sore back in self-pity, making little mewling sounds of discomfort.  "W-what happened?"  His previous awkwardness about his rival was temporarily forgotten at the new turn of events.

Sasuke jumped, then stiffened.  "The cart… capsized."

Naruto hissed as his fingers encountered a blister.  It was already beginning to heal over, though, and he breathed a matching sigh of relief when the pain subsided.  He looked around, and at Sasuke, who had also removed his own headband.

"Where… are we?  Is this Sand Country?"

Sasuke looked stoically out at the hazy horizon.  He had no clue.  "I'm not sure."

Naruto looked worried.  "Jeeze… Kakashi-sensei wasn't kidding.  It's _burning up_ out here… and think… a whole two weeks in this damned place…"  He tensed when he realized what he'd been saying, and the rush of awkwardness came hurdling back.  Oh yeah.  Two weeks, alone with Sasuke.  Just him… and… well, and _Sasuke_.  His rival.  His tentative friend.  His often times enemy.  A cold, emotionless boy who… who _loved_ him?

He still didn't believe it.  He wouldn't believe it.  As much as he admired and respected (and drooled after) Sakura, this time, he couldn't believe her.

Then why did he feel so nervous?  Why was his heart speeding up at this very moment?  Why was he wanting Sasuke to look at him, and at the same time, ashamed to be seen?

"Naruto, Sasuke… are you alright?"  Kakashi had approached them almost soundlessly from behind, and Naruto, lost in thought, jumped at his name.  Sasuke had already turned to acknowledge his sensei.

"We're fine.  We were both thrown, and Naruto was burned, but he's healed already."  Sasuke's smooth clip was flawless, never once betraying the emotion raging inside him.

Naruto stared at Sasuke, then twisted an arm behind his back to touch the blister tentatively.  It was gone.  When had Sasuke looked at him?  At his bare back, to make sure he was okay?  Even noticing that he'd healed as they waited?  The vulpine boy blushed faintly at the notion, and he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Good, good."  Kakashi breathed.  "Well, we've certainly had a turn of foul luck.  It seems as though we'll have to walk the rest of the way."  Even the relatively easy-going Jonin appeared a bit discouraged about this.

"WHAAAAT?!!"  Naruto couldn't stop himself, even with his heart still hammering around inside his ribcage.  "W-wait a minute, you want to _walk?  _On _those_ dunes?  To WHERE?!"  He bit out, squinting half-heartedly at the distant horizon.

Kakashi shrugged.  "It's not too far now.  Only a couple of hours of walking, I'd guess."  He smiled cryptically and turned to apologize to the driver, who had finally managed to calm his frightened horse.  Sasuke, watching him, tensed as his sensei bowed, the black cloth on his face slipping a bit at the neck, revealing a few colorful bite marks.  

A hundred images ghosted through his mind, unbidden.  Iruka, clinging to Kakashi as they moved, fingers digging into the pale skin of that broad back, covered in a sheen of sweat… a pink tongue trailing down the bumps of a long, tapering spine, a tortured moan… Kakashi's nimble hands cupping that heart-shaped face and brushing strands of damp black hair from wide, adoring eyes, lips meeting, colliding, merging… the trembles of orgasms passing through thin bodies, sealing everything away and awakening even more…

Then it was gone, that strip of exposed flesh.  His sensei straightened up, and Sasuke quickly averted his eyes, looking away to conceal his blood-red blush.  Naruto, still fuming about having to walk, never noticed a thing-  but Kakashi smiled.  He didn't need to see his pupil to know what had just happened;  he could _feel_ it.

"Well, shall we get going, then?"  The silver-haired man started clomping over the dunes, using his chakra to keep from sinking into the fine sand.  After watching for a moment or two, the boys did the same thing, imitating their leader and quickly catching up.

-----

Nearly two hours later, all three ninja were still moving, albeit at an incredibly slower pace than before.  Naruto, who had been forced to put his jacket back on because it wouldn't fit into his already crammed bag, pulled at it languidly.  It stuck wetly and with a squelching sound to his skin.  They'd all been sweating profusely, even Kakashi, who had implemented a cooling technique on himself earlier.  It seemed nature was pugnacious enough to even weaken the Jonin's chakra out here, in the desert.

"Are we… almost… there?"  Naruto panted, unconsciously trying to keep his pace matched with Sasuke's brisk one, a old habit forged from their rivalry that he'd probably never break.  

"Mm…"  Kakashi muttered.  It was only seconds later that the man stopped in his tracks, and the two boys, following close behind, almost ran into him.  "Well, look at that, Naruto.  Just as you asked… we're here."

All three ninja stared ahead at the massive building that seemed to float above the rolling dunes, like a ship at sea on the frothing ocean waves.  It was indeed a temple, and it was indeed _not_ a hallucination, as two sets of sharingan eyes quickly and silently confirmed.  It had to have been hundreds upon hundreds of square feet, all white marble, every last bit of it, gleaming in the sun.  There was hardly any roof left over it, supported by towering columns, the rest of it completely crumbled;  It was also fairly open-aired, and you could see the vast landscape on the other side of it through the same forest of columns.  It had obviously been abandoned for centuries, and Sasuke heavily doubted if any human had set foot upon it in even the last  hundred.  It looked, simply, like a forgotten palace.  A place of the gods, untouched, decrepit, holy.

"Wow…"  Naruto breathed beside him, enraptured.  Sasuke looked sideways at the boy, and felt his own breath stolen, but not by the crumbling temple.  Naruto looked gorgeous.  His child-like fascination glowed all around him, and the sun made his hair look as if on fire, just like in Sasuke's dreams, the ones he'd since stopped having, when Sakura caught him before.  No, he looked better than in those-  with his skin gleaming with sweat, and his face pink with the beginnings of a sunburn… the brilliant blue of his eyes as they reflected a white desert temple that he probably saw, in his endearing, naïve way, as a kingdom-  his own kingdom.  Like something… out of a dream.

Sasuke couldn't tear his eyes away.

It happened slowly.  Naruto moved slightly, his hip turning inward, and with it eventually came the rest of his body, shifting around to meet Sasuke's, and align perfectly;  his cerulean eyes fell upon Sasuke's obsidian ones, and there they lingered.  Each caught, they both gazed in frozen captivation.  Even as he seemed pinned to a wall, unable to look away, Sasuke felt a hot flutter erupt in his stomach-  then a cold dread turn all the sweat on his skin to frost.  Naruto could see it now.  He had captured Sasuke in an unguarded moment, when the Uchiha boy's eyes, wide and open, had everything he felt laid out for all to see.  His deepest emotions, feelings, thoughts-  they were all there, swimming in his eyes, in his expression, his pale face.  He had forgotten to turn away, and now Naruto had him trapped.  Like a butterfly in the net.

Fear spread through his limbs like wildfire in the forest.  Naruto was going to know the truth.  Naruto was going to hate him.  His rival, his enemy, his friend, his first love… was…

…going to smile at him?

Sasuke's mouth went dry and his lips parted like a fish thrown up to shore, unable to breathe.  Naruto was smiling, just slightly, shyly, an expression Sasuke thought he'd grow old and die before seeing on the fox-boy's face.  Those feline-marked cheeks were a faint pink-  not from sunburn, but flushed of their own accord.  Then, like Kakashi's sliver of sinful flesh, it was gone.  Naruto was looking away, moving away, as if nothing had happened, shuffling toward the temple after his sensei's retreating back.  

Swallowing hard, Sasuke followed, stumbling like a lamb to the slaughter.

-----

Naruto didn't know why he'd smiled.  He didn't know.  He didn't know, he didn't know, and he didn't want to think about it.  It had just happened, in only an instant, anyway-  he turned to see Sasuke looking at him with the most… the most _confusing_ expression on his face, something warm and yet… sad-  and he'd smiled.  It was just an unconscious reaction.  He'd never been looked at with something that stirred his heart so profoundly.  No one had ever looked at him with those eyes before.  Never.  

He hadn't known what to do.  So he turned away.

He was scared.  As much as he hated to admit it, (as the proud Uzumaki Naruto!) he was incredibly scared.  Sasuke was acting weird, and he was responding in just as weird a way.  And yet he'd never felt so alive before, so sensitive to everything, so conscious of the person walking just behind him.  

_No_, Naruto shook his head violently clear of the bothersome thoughts that persisted.  _Don't think like that.  It's _wrong_, like Sakura said.  It's wrong, and you feel nothing.  Nothing's changed.  Things'll be right back to normal soon, and it'll be as if nothing ever happened.  You'll see.  This thing you feel now, it isn't real.  It isn't real, it isn't real, it isn't real._

Naruto focused his gaze intensely on the temple ahead, looming ever closer.  He pretended to not notice when Sasuke came up beside him, matching their paces perfectly.  Kakashi, falling back from the two, watched with the smallest of lingering frowns.

-----

"Ah!"  Naruto dove for the first patch of shade the minute the three ninja reached the top of the marble stairs.  The white stone gleamed as if burnished no matter which way you looked at it, and this high up off the ground (the temple was extraordinarily tall) a warm breeze meandered through the hot air.  It was a wonderful change from the burning sand-storms they'd encountered before, where the breeze did nothing but fling stinging handfuls of sand into your face and onto any exposed skin, like hundreds of needles bitterly seeking an open wound.

"No more sun… no more sun…"  Naruto panted as he let his whole body fall forward and crumple in exhaustion, just under one towering, thick column that blotted out the light from above.  Kakashi chuckled as he joined the boy, Sasuke on his heels.

"Don't get used to it, Naruto.  When the sun moves across the sky, so will these shadows."  He stretched and sighed, as if the journey had been his test of strength, and not the two boys.  "Well, now that you two are here safe and sound, I'll be off."  His one visible eye swung around to pin Sasuke in a curious gaze.  "Two weeks.  And I must tell you, this will be the most difficult of the trials you lot have already undergone.  I worked it out this way on purpose."  He looked at Naruto, who was sitting now and listening.  "So."  Kakashi smiled, although his students couldn't have been entirely sure if it was menacing or genuine.  "Don't die on me."

With that the Jonin was gone.  Disappeared, almost-  and what lay on the marble floor where his feet had been was a miniature scarecrow, crudely made from twigs and a piece of black cloth.

The shinobi stared at it.

"W-wait!"  Naruto jumped up, face pink.  "If we could have gotten here using some kind of technique, why didn't we?!  We wouldn't have had to walk all those miles!!"  He looked desperately at Sasuke, as if wanting support for his argument.

Sasuke shrugged, and turned away.  Naruto couldn't see the expression on his face.  "It was probably another aspect of the trial.  You should know that, Naruto-  Kakashi-sensei wouldn't make anything easy on us."  The dark-haired boy began to casually walk away, but there was a noticeable hitch in his step, a little unsteadiness that gave away his anxiety and confusion, which had now magnified ten-fold at Kakashi's departure.

Naruto scowled at Sasuke's quip, feeling relief at the familiarity of what had just happened, how typical it was, just like old times.  But he also felt a little sad-  something in his chest, like a diluted form of panic, made him want to call out to Sasuke, stop the boy from walking away, and come back to the shade.  

"I'm going to check out the area."  Sasuke murmured.  Naruto flinched- maybe he'd been half-hoping Sasuke would call out to _him_, after all.  But then again, as he shook his head clear of such troublesome thoughts, he remembered that his rival was merely keeping him informed, as if they were on a mission.  You should always keep track of your comrades… _watch my back, and I'll watch yours._  Naruto sighed.  That's what Iruka always used to tell them, before they became full-fledged ninja.

-----

It had been… how long?  Naruto exhaled noisily, grimacing at the uncomfortable feel of rivulets of sweat sliding down his back and between his shoulder blades, disappearing into the waistband of his pants, soaking them too.  He'd been walking around this god-awful place for what seemed like two, three hours, looking for the best place to set up 'camp,' as one could call it.  So far, everything had been a little bit too open to be safe, and still susceptible to weather and sand.  He needed somewhere that would remain in the cool shadows, and was protected from the sky and the wind…

_There!_

Naruto scrambled forward, weariness forgotten.  It was a set of crumbling stairs, smack in the middle of a long stretch of marble floor, leading down… _down!_  That could only mean one thing-  another room, perhaps, and permanent shade from the glaring sun.

"It's perfect…"  The vulpine boy breathed as he slowly descended the stairs to emerge in an underground room, much like the tombs of a pyramid in Egypt.  He saw one chamber, rather open with a clear space in the middle, and another archway (a door?) leading into a second room.

"Hey."  Sasuke emerged from the second chamber, a guarded expression on his face.  "So you finally found this place, huh?"

Naruto quickly wiped the surprise from his young, fair features.  "Er… yeah.  What's in that room?"

Sasuke moved aside.  "Come look."

It was magnificent.  Naruto's eyes widened like saucers as he stepped through the doorway.  This room was twice as big as the previous one, but there was no space to sleep-  a huge marble pool filled the floor, made by ancient hands but having a natural source-  the sides sloped down deep towards the bottom, where an underground spring was still, after all these years, welling up clean, cool water.

"Wow…"  Naruto gasped, forgetting, for a moment, who was standing beside him, practically eating him up with obsidian eyes.  "Is… is the water cold?"

"No."  Sasuke reluctantly tore his eyes away and looked at the bathing pool before them, probably used by ancient peoples as a place of religious ceremonies, back in the time when the temple thrived.  "The stone and air are still too hot-  they heat the water, make it warm."

"Well, at least it's not boiling!"  Naruto laughed happily, moving forward, and sliding his bags off his back.  He squatted down and dipped his hand into the water.  Sasuke had been right, it was pleasantly warm.

"Maybe we can go swimming in this later, if it gets really bad out."  Naruto said innocently.  Sasuke blushed faintly at the suggestion and backed into the doorway, then turned and walked into the smaller room before Naruto could see.  The dark-haired boy frowned slightly at himself-  why was he running away more and more these days?  Just giving up and retreating?  What was he scared of?  Naruto already knew, didn't he?

And maybe that was the problem.  If Naruto knew, why wasn't he treating Sasuke like shit?  Why wasn't he disgusted, or flat-out ignoring him?

The possibilities scared him.  He didn't want to think about it.

"Well, this place looks good, so I'm going to set up my stuff here."  Naruto startled Sasuke from his thoughts, breezing into the room and dropping his bags unceremoniously onto the warm marble.  He untied one and yanked out the same blankets that he'd used in the cabin with Sakura.  Arranging them into another makeshift bed, he glanced to the side, slightly surprised, when Sasuke joined him on the floor.  His rival had already put his stuff down against the wall, probably before Naruto had even discovered the place, and was now unfolding a stack of blankets that would be his own bed.

"Uh… is this alright?"  Naruto asked haltingly.  Sasuke glanced up, the faintest hint of a blush coloring his porcelain cheeks.

"What?"

"Sleeping in the… uh, the same room?"  When Sasuke just stared at him, expression unreadable, Naruto scrambled verbally to correct himself.  "I mean, when I was with Sakura, she refused to sleep near me, so uh, I, I guess I just thought you'd be the same…"  He trailed off.

Sasuke continued to look at him in silence for some time, then turned back to his own bed.  "I'm not like her."

This blunt statement made Naruto whip his head back around.  It was his turn to stare at the Uchiha boy.

"But if it makes you uncomfortable, I will leave."

"N-no!  No, no, I meant…"  Naruto searched for the right words, but failed miserably.  Sasuke regarded him coolly, but underneath that placid exterior, his heart was raging against his ribcage.  _So, nothing happened between them… they didn't even sleep in the same room…  and why is he so nervous?  I should be the nervous one, not him…_

Naruto blushed when he realized, moments later, what he'd said.  He'd just admitted to Sasuke that he hadn't even slept in the same room as Sakura during their retreat, and not only that, but the fact that she had been adamant about staying away from him.  The realization angered him.  He wasn't sure why, but maybe… maybe he'd wanted Sasuke to think something had happened between him and the girl, and… and… get jealous, or something, anything…  but he'd just screwed up.  He'd let everything slip, and now the dark-haired boy would surely laugh because Naruto was probably never going to get any.  Hell, for all the boy knew, Sasuke might have already fooled around with Sakura, and now he'd look at Naruto with even _more_ gloating!

But… how would that explain what Sakura said?  That night, in the cabin, as she cried into her pillow…

_"It's wrong… I don't understand… oh, God, Sasuke…"  The girl clenched her fists in the sheets, till her knuckles were white.  "I tried everything… I did everything… nothing worked on you, and now I know why… but… I don't understand… I just don't understand… it's sick… how can you be doing _that_… and thinking about _him_… how can you…"  Sakura's whole body trembled with the sobs.  "How can you _love _Naruto?  How can you, Sasuke?"  _

No.  Naruto shook his head as color flooded his face.  No, no, no, no.  It wasn't true.  Sasuke… wasn't like that.  He… he wasn't…

Naruto risked a glance at Sasuke.  The boy wasn't looking at him anymore, but was finishing his task, unrolling the blankets and arranging his bed.  It was a mere two or so feet from Naruto's.  The vulpine boy swallowed, but made no move to distance the beds any farther.

Maybe it was him.  Maybe he was the one that was sick, and wrong.  After all, Sasuke wasn't even looking at him, but here he was, staring at the boy and feeling heat, different from the hot sun above, washing through his body, tingling throughout the nerves and making him so sensitive to everything, making him feel alive, so sensuous, making his face flush in color and his groin ache…

…making Sasuke look… _beautiful._

Here, in the shadows of the underground chamber, Sasuke's hair was gleaming like the marble above, a midnight blue streaking through the black with every movement.  His shirt, soaked through with sweat, clung to his back, and every time Sasuke's body shifted, muscles rippled just under the skin-  he was still lithe, like a cat, but so fine-toned that Naruto could almost _smell_ the power coursing through the boy.  It was unfathomable, and it made Naruto's blood boil, made his heart speed up and mouth go dry.

Sasuke turned just as Naruto was licking his lips, pink tongue sweeping out to wet the dry flesh.  Obsidian eyes widened.  Naruto froze the minute he realized Sasuke had caught him.  He looked quickly away, confusing and fear gripping him like cold hands around his throat, making it hard for him to swallow.  He pretended to be busy unpacking the rest of his bag, but his slender, tanned fingers stumbled clumsily over everything, betraying him.

Sasuke, however, couldn't look away.  He was stunned by what he'd just seen, as fleeting as it had been.  Naruto, looking at him and licking his lips, with a wild, aroused, almost _feral_ look in his eyes, something akin to hunger etched across his vulpine face.

As frightening as it was, Sasuke's breath came hard just thinking about that brief moment, and his grip on his bag tightened, the knuckles popping, as he stoically fought to keep himself from either lunging at the boy in his lust, or running off to find a place where he could peacefully rid himself of the painfully tight erection that was forming in his shorts.  

This was dangerous.  And they both knew it, whether they understood it or not.

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End part one

Comments:  Well, so, so sorry that it took so long to get that damned chapter out!  I kind of wandered off course, you know, after discovering GetBackers.  ^_^U  And of course, TeniPuri doujinshi… *eyes huge collection*  But after all of your nice, encouraging comments (and death threats.. _;)  I realized how lazy I was being and how I was neglecting this poor story and these poor horny boys!  But this is not the end, no way-  I expect another four or five updates, this last chapter will probably end up with about five parts to it.  It's a long, tedious road, wish me luck!!  *blows all of her reviewers big kisses*

Please, please review!  (So I don't wander away again… ^^;;;)


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